MARLBOROUGH, Mass.— After a lopsided victory in the conference opener and a pair of wins over nationally-ranked opponents all in a five-day span, No. 8/6 Babson College swept the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) men's lacrosse weekly honors on Monday afternoon.
Junior
Camden Matthews (Westford, Mass.) was named NEWMAC Offensive Player of the Week, sophomore
Andrew Almquist (Wakefield, Mass.) was tabbed Defensive Player of the Week, and graduate student
Beau Burns (Philadelphia, Pa.) earned Face-Off Specialist of the Week recognition for the Beavers. Almquist and Burns earned their weekly honors for the second time this season while Matthews received the award for the first time this spring.
Matthews recorded a pair of hat tricks and paced a balanced attack with eight goals and two assists for 10 points. He scored twice in Wednesday's 15-11 victory at No. 17/14 Amherst, produced a season-high five points and three goals and two assists in Saturday's 19-8 rout of Wheaton, and contributed three more goals as the Beavers rallied from a four-goal deficit to beat No. 18/16 Middlebury 14-9 on Sunday.
The team's leading goal scorer, Matthews is tied for second on the team with 20 points on 15 goals and five assists. He ranks eighth in the NEWMAC in goals and tied for ninth in points and has scored at least two goals in his last five games and six of his seven outings this season.
Almquist was terrific between the pipes totaling 37 saves while posting a 9.33 goals against average and a .569 save percentage to go along with nine ground balls and three caused turnovers. The sophomore goalkeeper stopped 12 shots, picked up four ground balls and had one caused turnover in Wednesday's 15-11 victory at Amherst, and followed it up with 14 saves, four ground balls and a season-high two caused turnovers in Saturday's 19-8 triumph at Wheaton. Almquist capped the week with 11 saves as the Beavers rallied to beat Middlebury 14-9 on Sunday.
Babson's starter in goal in all seven games, Almquist has registered a 9.29 goals against average and a .575 save percentage with 88 saves. He ranks third in the NEWMAC in both GAA and save percentage as well as second in saves per game.
Burns won 77.6 percent of his face-offs (52-of-67) and scooped up 40 ground balls in the 3-0 week. He won 23-of-28 face-offs and collected a career-high 18 ground balls in Wednesday's 15-11 win at Amherst and followed it up by winning 12-of-13 while picking up nine ground balls in Saturday's 19-8 rout of Wheaton. Burns capped the week by going 17-of-26 on face-offs to go along with 13 ground balls in the comeback 14-9 win over Middlebury.
A grad transfer from Bowdoin, Burns has won 86 of his 118 face-offs this spring for a 72.9 percentage, which leads the NEWMAC and ranks 14th in Division III. He has also scooped up a team-high 62 ground balls, and his 8.86 ground balls per game leads the conference and ranks 27th in Division III.
The Beavers (7-0), one of 15 teams in Division III with undefeated records, will host defending NEWMAC regular season champion and tournament runner-up Springfield on Saturday at 1 p.m. at MacDowell Field.
